memeorandum: Biden builds out White House digital operation (Dan Merica/CNN)

11:40 AM ET, December 28, 2020

Top Items:

The Post says: Give it up, Mr. President — for your sake and the nation's — Mr. President, it's time to end this dark charade. — We're one week away from an enormously important moment for the next four years of our country. — On Jan. 5, two runoff races in Georgia will determine …

Elizabeth Wasserman / Bloomberg:
New York Post Tells Trump to ‘Give It Up’ Over Election Claim

Discussion: Breitbart, Mediaite and HotAir

Mike Allen / Axios:

GOP officials invoked Trump's legacy in pleas to sign coronavirus relief bill — Getting a cranky, stubborn President Trump to belatedly sign the COVID relief bill, after unemployment benefits had already lapsed, was like being a hostage negotiator, or defusing a bomb.

Discussion: CBS News, HotAir, Washington Post, Mock Paper Scissors, Raw Story, The Week, Alabama Political Reporter, Crooks and Liars, BGR, CNBC and Political Wire

Washington Post:
Trump signs stimulus and government spending bill into law, averting shutdown

Discussion: Politico, The Week, Crooks and Liars, The Texas Tribune, Forbes, Lawyers, Guns & Money, CBS News, The Hill, The Sun, RedState, One America News Network, The Mahablog, Raw Story, Mother Jones, Fortune, Bloomberg and Twitchy

Kevin Liptak / CNN:
Trump chooses chaos with delayed signature of Covid relief bill

Discussion: Raw Story, HotAir and Mediaite

Emily Cochrane / New York Times:
Trump Signs Pandemic Relief Bill After Unemployment Aid Lapses

Discussion: MSNBC, NBC News, The Nation, No More Mister Nice Blog, Axios, The Gateway Pundit, The Week, Townhall, CBS San Francisco and New York Post

The White House:
Statement from the President — As President of the United States it is my responsibility …

Discussion: Vox, CNN, We Love Trump, Reason, TheBlaze, The Gateway Pundit, BGR, The Week, BillMoyers.com, The Daily Caller, Boston Herald, Variety, HotAir, The Daily Beast and Breitbart

Wall Street Journal:
What's in the $900 Billion Covid-19 Relief Bill

Discussion: NBC News, The US Sun and Business Insider

Benjamin Swasey / NPR:
Trump Signs COVID-19 Relief Deal After His Criticism Threatened To Derail It

Discussion: The Last Refuge, The Daily Caller, USA Today, Outside the Beltway, Tennessee Star, Los Angeles Times, NBC4 Washington, HuffPost, Roll Call, Raw Story, POLITICUSUSA, Washington Times, Deadline, Associated Press, The Guardian and Washington Examiner

Edmund DeMarche / Fox News:
McConnell praises Trump for signing COVID-19, government funding bills

Discussion: The Hill, IJR, The Federalist and Conservative News Today

Politico:

POLITICO Playbook: Trump got nothing — DRIVING THE DAY — THAT'S IT? President DONALD TRUMP made all this noise about the Covid relief and government funding bill only to sign it and get nothing in return? — TRUMP got taken to the cleaners. — WHAT A BIZARRE, embarrassing episode for the president.

Discussion: USA Today, Fox News, NPR, Raw Story, Bloomberg and ABC7

Dan Balz / Washington Post:

Political Reckoning — The year 2020 brought extraordinary and unexpected challenges that tested the strength of basic institutions, demanded courage and sacrifice in the face of a raging pandemic, underscored racial and economic inequities, and produced the biggest turnout of voters in the history of U.S. elections.

Discussion: The Stream, Washington Times, New Republic, The Guardian, Politico, Michigan Advance, Political Wire and New York Times

Washington Post: For D.C. protests, Proud Boys settle in at city's oldest hotel and its bar

Dom Calicchio / Fox News:
Trump accuses McConnell, others in GOP of failing to fight for him

Discussion: USA Today and Washington Examiner

Will Feuer / CNBC:

Biden will invoke Defense Production Act to boost Covid vaccine production, advisor says — President-elect Joe Biden plans to invoke the Defense Production Act after he takes office next month to boost production of Covid vaccines, a member of his Covid-19 advisory team said.

Discussion: Axios, The Hill, POLITICUSUSA and CBS News

NBC News:

Ossoff, Warnock warn about running low on funds, seek last-minute donations — LITHONIA, Ga. — Eight days out from Election Day in Georgia's crucial Senate runoff races, Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are “sounding the alarm” about their ability to keep pace with GOP spending …

Discussion: Political Wire

Cleve Wootson / Washington Post:
Georgia Senate runoffs test whether Trump remains a ‘poison’ for moderate GOP voters

Discussion: Politico, Raw Story, WTOP, Bloomberg and Newsy

Michael Tomasky / The Daily Beast:
Loser Trump Wants to Drag the Republican Party Down With Him

Discussion: CNN, Florida Phoenix and Raw Story

Al Jazeera:

Saudi women's rights activist al-Hathloul given prison sentence — Loujain al-Hathloul sentenced to five years and eight months in prison by a Saudi court. — A Saudi terrorism court has sentenced prominent women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to five years and eight months in prison …

Discussion: NPR

Associated Press: Saudi women's rights activist Loujain Alhathloul sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison: state-linked media

Aya Batrawy / Associated Press:
Saudi women's rights activist sentenced to nearly 6 years

Discussion: Reuters, New York Times and The Daily Caller

Vivian Nereim / Bloomberg:
Saudi Women's Rights Activist Convicted But Could Be Freed Soon

Discussion: One America News Network

Ben Smith / New York Times:

Heather Cox Richardson Offers a Break From the Media Maelstrom. It's Working. — She is the breakout star of the newsletter platform Substack, doing the opposite of most media as she calmly situates the news of the day in the long sweep of American history.

more at Mediagazer »

Vivian Wang / New York Times:

Chinese Citizen Journalist Sentenced to 4 Years for Covid Reporting — Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, is the first known person to be tried for challenging the Chinese government's narrative about the coronavirus pandemic. — A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a citizen journalist …

Discussion: South China Morning Post, BBC, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Reuters, Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, National Review, TheBlaze, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Daily Caller, JONATHAN TURLEY, WTOP and Scripting News, more at Mediagazer »

Politico:

Meet the GOP freshmen taking on the squad — On the first day of Congress' freshman orientation, four incoming GOP members realized they shared a special connection: All had first- or second-hand experience living in communist or socialist countries. — The crew quipped that their family histories …

Tiana Lowe / Washington Examiner:

Rubio is right: Fauci has repeatedly lied because he thinks you're stupid — Nearly a year into our 15 days to slow the spread, our political class still refuses to call out our supposed medical experts for repeatedly discrediting themselves with noble lie after noble lie.

Discussion: Fox News, The Federalist and RedState

Sarah K. Burris / Raw Story:
Marco Rubio facing furious backlash after calling Dr. Anthony Fauci a liar and an elitist

Discussion: Florida Politics and HuffPost

Dan Merica / CNN:

Biden builds out White House digital operation — (CNN)President-elect Joe Biden on Monday named a slate of digital operatives to his incoming White House staff, preparing for an administration that, at least at the outset, will conduct most of its public-facing business digitally amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA

Lawrence Wright / New Yorker:

The Plague Year — The mistakes and the struggles behind America's coronavirus tragedy. — 1. “An Evolving Situation” — There are three moments in the yearlong catastrophe of the covid-19 pandemic when events might have turned out differently. The first occurred on January 3, 2020 …

more at Mediagazer »

Fox News:

Ayotte and Comstock: Year of Republican women continues - now it's Kelly Loeffler's turn in Georgia — After years of setbacks, 2020 election yielded historic gains for GOP women in Congress — Loeffler, Perdue will see ‘huge turnout’ in Georgia Senate runoffs: Alyssa Farah

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:

At least we know Trump's not serious about 2024 — As if an attempted coup, insulting the “totally incompetent and weak” Supreme Court (including three appointees who supposedly were his big gift to conservatives), and refusing even to comment on the covid-19 surge did not make it clear …

Discussion: Raw Story, The American Independent, The Gateway Pundit, Crooks and Liars and New York Magazine

Eric Levitz / New York Magazine:

Trump May Have Accidentally Been a Transformational President — In January 2008, Barack Obama declared his intention to be the next Ronald Reagan. The Democratic presidential candidate told the Reno Gazette-Journal that Reagan had “changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not …

Discussion: HuffPost

Naomi Thomas / CNN:

Novavax coronavirus vaccine becomes fifth to begin Phase 3 trials in United States — (CNN)Novavax on Monday announced the start of the Phase 3 trial of its Covid-19 vaccine in the United States and Mexico. It is the fifth company to launch a large-scale trial of a coronavirus vaccine in the United States.

Discussion: CBS Baltimore

John Daniel Davidson / The Federalist:

5 Big Things We Learned About Our Elites In 2020 — It's been a hard year but at least we know, beyond all doubt, that our elites despise us and will do anything to expand their power. — For as difficult as the past year has been, from politics to the pandemic, it has at least helped …

Discussion: New York Magazine